Horsepower: A Memoir

By Annette Israel

He was just an aged Belgian draft horse, left alone in a pasture to live out the remaining days of his twilight years. He spent his time drooling and swishing flies. But one day the old horse stepped out of a wobbly wire fence, and into a new life. He became useful again, as a horse, when he teamed up with the author, who had always wanted a Belgian draft horse.

He immediately began to subtly influence her and other people who crossed his path. The horse weighed one ton and was physically strong. He was also kind and gentle, with an uncanny manner of getting involved in the lives of the people he met. Through trials and good times, through laughter and tears, this grand old horse conveyed many messages about life.

Horsepower - A Memoir; is a true story. It's a passionate, warm and humorous portrayal of an old horse's life as told by his last owner and friend. Richly enveloped in a series of nostalgic flashbacks, you will find yourself laughing and crying, sometimes both on the same page, as you read about his escapades, and ponder your own experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 2, 2008
• ISBN: 9781440102547

Annette Israel

ANNETTE ISRAEL is an award winning author (ForeWard gold medalist for her first book, Horsepower - A Memoir). The Blue Bead is her first novel. Annette holds a master’s degree in Humanities. She lives in the middle of a horse pasture in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan surrounded by her many rescued horses and dogs with two happy cats who refused to admit that they ever needed rescuing.

Book preview

Copyright © 2008 Annette Israel. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

iUniverse Star

an iUniverse, Inc. imprint

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 4740

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4401-0251-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-0254-7 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/25/2008

For God

From whom all good things come

And to whom all good things go.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THIS STORY IS TRUE. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

For my parents, who helped me find my talents and pointed me in the right direction to find the tools I’d need along the way, thank you.

Thanks to Megan Crawford for her expertise in catching all of the initial typos and punctuation errors in this manuscript.

Thanks to Gary Lane who talked me through formatting changes on the phone while he was in Virginia, and to Nick Bagalay for coming to my home and actually doing the additional formatting changes.

Thanks to Jeanne Rouston at Kopy Korner for scanning photos and uploading the whole package to the publisher. For all of you who helped me with the computer issues, I appreciate everything. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks to Jim Binder at Isabella Bank & Trust.

Thanks to Mark, Stephen, Zach, Shawn, Shelley, Lynn, Jan, Diane, and all of the folks at iUniverse. Thank you, Mark Mandell.

Kathy—best friend and horse bud—thank you for always being there for nearly four decades, during joyful and painfully rough times. Remember Rocky Top, the pie, the pizza, and all of the horse shows all over the country? Always remember the laughs and tears we’ve shared. You’ve never once hurled darts at my dreams or the risks I’ve taken.

Nancy—best friend and horse bud—I’ve never once heard you speak the words, If you need anything, let me know. Without exception, you always set aside whatever is going on in your life—and go. You have also been there through need, grief, and happiness. We speak the language of the horse and we understand. You alone were the person who stood just behind me, but within earshot, cheering this book on to completion. Remember that this project began on an old computer you loaned to me. At least it will get you started, you said. If the dictionary contained photographs and someone looked up the definition of best friend, they’d find your picture there.

Thanks to, and a special remembrance for Charles Ritter, who passed away before the completion of this book.

Chapter One

SCRATCHES AND SCARS DEEPLY etch the rugged black leather of the old horse collar. The metal buckles are pitted and brown with rust. On the inside, the leather is textured and feels like sandpaper, corroded with layers of historical horse sweat.

Outside my kitchen window, beneath the silvery blue dusk of winter, snow is billowing in great gusts across the now barren hayfield. Prompted by memories, and urged on by the weight of the old collar as it rests heavily against my knee, I am eased into telling a story that began with a question I asked my father when I was sixteen years old.

Can I please have a Belgian?

You already have a horse, he said. What are you going to do with a draft horse?

Ride it, I said, my brown eyes peering hopefully into my father’s face.

I’d found an ad in the paper describing a yearling Belgian colt, and buying him seemed wonderfully logical to my adolescent mind.

Someday, when you are an adult, and you want a draft horse, you can have one, Papa said, and that was the end of that conversation.

My father had grown up on a farm in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where draft horses were used for pulling logs out of the woods and hauling hay. They weren’t riding horses. Farmers had a deep respect for the power of these massive creatures, but they never thought of them as pets. They were working animals, and they worked hard.

As a child, I often sat on my father’s lap and said, Tell me about when you were little. That was the only cue he needed to launch into tales of the two workhorses his father owned. One was named Queenie and the other named Babe. Babe was an older, white Percheron mare. She was a dependable workhorse and threw her weight into the collar, pulling her share and more when the team was hitched to a load. Queenie was a younger, bay draft mare that should have won an Academy Award. Queenie would make all of the appropriate huffs and puffs like she was straining and working hard when she was hitched. In reality, though, she was only pretending, forcing Babe to do all of the work. When my father slowed the team, Babe would appropriately stop pulling, but Queenie was always caught red-hoofed. Since she’d been acting all along, she didn’t realize they’d been asked to stop, and so she would continue her stage-worthy performance. I sat wide-eyed in wonder at the stories and descriptions of those great horses. Papa often said that Babe was durable and of sound mind and strong character. She was wise and kind, he said. Queenie possessed a dark mahogany beauty and large expressive eyes, but that was about the extent of her attributes. I knew that my father loved both mares, but for different reasons. He was able to forgive Queenie for all her misdeeds the moment she transgressed. Beauty expects, and receives, softness. I am confident that this man, who never once spanked me, never struck a horse either.

It’s been said that we are born with the love of horses. It’s not something that we can quickly or eloquently put into words. You either have it, or you don’t. Such a deep inborn passion is not something you chase after; rather, it finds you, fills you, and becomes you. It never goes away. My mother told me stories of how I sat in my highchair as a baby, entranced by a little blue rocking horse rattle that she had put on my tray. No other toy held my interest. Later, at a year and a half old, I often stood in the living room captivated by our black-and-white television set—but just at certain times. Mama figured out that I did this only when a cowboy named Vint Bonner was galloping his horse across the screen.

At the grand old age of four years, I received a real rocking horse for Christmas. I rode my horse every day, all day long, rocking and bouncing on its squeaky springs in time to music from my mom’s record collection. Daily, my mother had to lift me off of my dapper steed when I had fallen fast asleep.

For most of my early childhood, I crawled around on all fours with soup cans attached to my hands so that they would sound like hooves. I stuffed one of my mother’s scarves into the back of my pants for a tail. Sometimes I would put a pencil in my mouth for a bit and rig up shoelaces to resemble a bridle. I whinnied and snorted and practiced every noise a horse made. I even crawled down the sidewalk like this, oblivious to the fact that we had neighbors. Undoubtedly, as they peeked out their windows, they must have commented among themselves, Eric and Adele sure have a strange little kid. Trips in the family car were adventures for me as my sharp, horse-crazed eyes steadfastly scanned out the windows in the hopes of spotting horses. Countless times, my father carried me on his shoulders up to some strange farmer’s door to ask if his daughter could pet the horses over the fence. If my parents weren’t watching, they’d find me off in the distance slogging through mud or knee-deep snow in order to get close to a horse. I collected horse statues, pictures, and anything and everything one might possibly need for horse ownership. I wrote pages of names for horses. I drew horses. I dreamed of horses. I lived and breathed horses.

When I turned ten, my parents started taking me to a local riding stable for a one-hour ride on a horse. The week in between each chance to be with a horse was painfully long and almost unbearable. I spent the weekdays daydreaming about horses, waiting anxiously for Saturday to roll around again. Once home after these rides, I would conveniently forget to wash the glorious scent of horse off of my hands for as long as I could avoid it. I would close my eyes, cup my hands over my nose, and breathe in the sweet, husky smell over and over. I’d finally have to give in when my mom persisted, Did you wash your hands? My love of horses was much more than a passing childhood fancy—it was an ache.

When I was twelve, I said a special novena to St. Joseph. A novena is said for nine consecutive mornings for anything you may desire. I asked for a horse before I reached my thirteenth birthday. On December 5, 1968, my parents bought me Velvet, a spirited, part-Arabian bay mare. The next day I turned thirteen. My parents never knew about the novena.

Life began for me when Velvet came. The touch and warmth of a horse had finally filled the shell that was supposed to be me. Velvet became the pulse that drove my life, and I had the freedom and time of youth to leisurely enjoy each moment with her.

I grew up in the city of Pontiac, Michigan, during a time that was both a challenge and a blessing, as each day continually dealt pages of yet-to-be-written history books. I walked hand in hand with my parents to the high school one day where we stood in a long line waiting to get our sugar cubes with little pink dots on them. I was only a toddler, but I remember the experience even though I couldn’t comprehend the significance that the little pink dot held for the entire world. Polio had never touched my family—and never would.

My first experience with death occurred on one fall day in 1963. I came home from school and, instead of bounding through the door as usual, I felt the occasion was important enough to ring the doorbell. My mom answered the door with a slightly perplexed look on her face.

Mamma, I said, President Kennedy is dead.

My mother dropped to her knees and said, Honey, don’t ever joke about something like that.

I saw something wash over her that worried me. It had just slammed into her that her second grader was home at an odd time, and it was improbable that she would concoct such a tale. She left me standing in the doorway. I watched as she bolted through the house and collapsed in front of the radio. Slowly, I walked into the house and stood near her as her sobs became nearly deafening. It was as if I wasn’t there at all—as if I’d ceased to exist—and I was scared. It was the first time I’d ever felt truly alone. It was the first time that I realized my mother was a separate being with feelings of her own, and that she didn’t exist solely to serve my every need. It was the first time I saw her cry.

We watched our black-and-white television for days after the assassination. The Six White Horses, the beautiful rider-less horse with the boots carried backwards. I thought, How can anything I love so much be a part of something so sad? But, we got through it and we went ahead with our lives.

A time of sharp contrasts, it was the age of LSD, hip-hugger jeans, and tie-dyed shirts, the Vietnam War, gas masks, and flowers propped into the barrels of rifles by college students. Protests and demonstrations seemed endless. Everyone had something to say.

One day I went to the high school to hear a young man speak. There were only a handful of us gathered in the auditorium even though he’d drawn national attention. Some people listened to his words; most dismissed him as a heretic. His name was Ralph Nader and his mission, on that day, was to forewarn us of the dangers of pollution—that we must change our output or we wouldn’t have a planet.

Women began to challenge and they dared to dream that one day a little girl might grow up to become president. An American walked on the moon. Black people also dared to question and demand a fair share of dreams and the possibility of actually achieving them. And racial tension raged like one hot, continuous August day.

I attended Pontiac Central High School. It was a good school—not void of problems, but the only school I knew. I saw a student knifed in the hallway right in front of me. She survived the attack and graduated that year. Desks were often hurled out of windows, and fights broke out almost on a daily basis. I’ve always thought it so strikingly odd when I hear folks say that the heavy racism of the ‘60s and ‘70s occurred only in the South. So it is with any inhumane action people have eagerly joined in, until those who are wiser and more compassionate shake that turf, forcing us to see truth. Once our deeds are exposed, it’s always someone else who did it, some other group that is responsible—it happened over there. Ten brand-new school buses were torched and burned beyond recognition in Pontiac, Michigan. White parents did this in protest of black children being bussed to the schools their children attended. But new busses rolled into history anyway.

National Guardsmen lined up and down our street in full riot gear. I walked past them every morning on my way to school and at the close of each day. Tanks groaned their way through downtown, and every night the streets tried to sleep under the curfew.

1968 was bittersweet. My beloved Velvet, the answer to my prayers and dreams came into my life. It was also the year that Dr. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. It was a tumultuous time; of that there can be no doubt. The pressure of those days and events were softened for me because I had a horse. I lived in the city and attended a tough city school. But, even though at times the whole world was rocketing off its foundation all around me, I was able to leave it every night after school and on the weekends when my mom or dad drove me out to the barn where Velvet was stabled.

As many youngsters do when they have a horse, I joined 4-H. Over the years, I competed in countless horse shows, even in the wintertime. I can still see my father’s face turned up toward me as he bent over, chipping rock-like ice off of the trailer hitch. His soft hazel eyes blinked at the snow and sleet biting his cheeks.

Do you really want to go? he asked.

Yes, I said.

On horse show mornings, I was the one who rang in the day. It was easy to do because I was always so excited about going to a show that I stayed up the whole night in anticipation. Early in the morning, I would tiptoe into my parents’ bedroom in the dark and gently touch Papa on the shoulder. It’s time to go, I’d whisper.

He always took a deep, regretful breath. Annette, it’s three-thirty in the morning, he’d say.

I know, but I have to work Velvet.

While I was busy scurrying around, getting last minute tack loaded into the truck, my father made our usual breakfast of Cream ofWheat cereal with toast and peanut butter. We put the Cream of Wheat on the toast with peanut butter and ate it as our own special invention. And we had hot cocoa made with milk. Those mornings are carved into my past, but they mean more to me now than they did at the time, and are safely tucked away in my collection of special memories.

We loaded up and drove to various locations and fairgrounds throughout the state to participate in shows. Velvet was a feisty mare. She pranced and jigged sideways every time I rode her, and she needed a lot of exercise before she was calm enough to enter the show ring. I always insisted on getting to the show grounds early so that I could work her. Many times, when we pulled into a deserted lot, my father would look around and say quietly, as if to no one in particular, We’re the only ones here. His accurate observation didn’t diminish my utter joy. It didn’t matter to me that it was still dark, and I never seemed to notice that there would be just one lone rider in the warm-up ring for hours—me. I happily got my horse ready and rode her.

Dad and I were tired and dusty when we returned home at the end of a long day, but it was what we did, and it was fun. Mom and I had a routine we followed after every show. It began when I won my first ribbon and placed a pink, fifth-place rosette into her open palms.

How did you do? she would ask.

Close your eyes and open your hands, I’d say.

In the early days, there might have been just a solitary ribbon, the color denoting a low placing. But, over the years, there were many trophies and blue ribbons that I placed in her hands. Velvet and I even qualified for the state 4-H show several times in my last years as a 4-H member. Mom never cared what color the ribbons were or how many I won. She didn’t care if there weren’t any at all; she only wanted me to have fun.

Mamma didn’t go to the shows very often, but she made nearly all of my show outfits. At first my costumes looked homemade and downright silly because we didn’t know the styles. I once sewed bright red pompons and tassels all over Velvet’s western saddle pad and hung

Reviews for Horsepower

[timbazzett · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although HORSEPOWER, Annette Israel's sweet memoir about a beloved horse, is a slight little book, it packs quite an emotional punch. I suspect it might appeal to ordinary people, and not just to the horsey set, or the "horse sect," as Israel calls them, but to pet lovers everywhere who have loved a pet deeply and then, inevitably, had to deal with losing it.Not too long ago I read another book about a horse named Snowman, a book that climbed all the way up to the NY Times list of bestsellers. But personally, I found the story to be flat and unengaging. Not so with HORSEPOWER. It grabs you because the author, not a professional writer, had so much invested in it. Israel's deep love for horses, and particularly for Ren, a Belgian draft horse she kept for five years until his death at the very ripe old age of thirty, is obvious throughout the book.Her narrative, while sometimes marred by awkward constructions and tortured metaphors, is earnest and sincere, which is what saves it. I'm not a horse person particularly, but I do love animals. Having lost two dearly loved dogs in the past year, I could relate to Israel's story. I'll give it three and three-quarter stars. And will recommend it highly to those who fall into that "horse sect".